Here you can share your experiences with substances that are ingested, inhaled, or otherwise consumed for the purpose of relieving RLS/WED, other than prescription medications. For example, herbal remedies, nutritional supplements, diet, kratom, and marijuana (for now) should be discussed here. Tell others of successes, failures, side effects, and any known research on these substances. [Posts on these subjects created prior to 2009 are in the Physical Treatments forum.]

Important: Posts and information in this section are based on personal experiences and recommendations; they should not be considered a substitute for the advice of a healthcare provider.

I have two dear friends who are aware of my RLS situation (possible termination of methadone) and are fretting about my experimenting with kratom. They've been reading cautionary statements on line about potential liver damage, addictiveness, etc. So have I, but I've been paying the most attention to what people on this discussion board have to say and trusting their experience. Are there precautions I should be taking, other than starting out with low doses? Any suggestions for info that might reassure my friends?

Mudslide, this is an ongoing problem with kratom and dealing with friends and relatives.

The short answer is that you cannot be sure that kratom is entirely safe. It is not regulated by the FDA or other government bodies to assure its purity and safety. There have been very few scientific studies of side effects and consequences of long-term use.

The most we can say is that the Kratom leaves have been used for over a thousand years in Southeast Asia where it grows naturally and workers have used it for controlling pain. There are millions of folks in the United States that use kratom on a daily basis and in spite of the FDA and greedy pharmaceutical companies attempts at restricting it they haven't been very successful so far. There have been almost no documented reports of serious side effects directly attributable to kratom.

On the other side of the coin, opioids which also have been used for a long time in the United States are undoubtedly extremely dangerous medications, and while at the doses that most RLS patients take them they are quite safe, at higher doses, addiction and death are real problems.

Kratom is a leaf that has many different chemicals in it, and drug companies want to purify those ingredients and use them for their own expensive new medications, they really don't want people to use naturally occurring, safe and inexpensive natural products.

Holland speaks great good sense as always. I don’t want to sound too dismissive of concerns but I would also suggest that you look very carefully at any posts concerning the dangers of Kratom. What I noticed was that most people who are having a very hard time with it are on a REALLY high dose - such as someone taking it to alleviate rls will never take. They are frequently using it to replace a very profound opiate addiction and they are using it in levels commensurate with their previous opiate use. In those quantities any drug will cause problems. I have searched reddit and other websites to find someone complaining of problems with Kratom who is on a dose like mine - a comparatively low dose. And I haven’t found any.

I've been taking kratom for over five years, and for most of these years I've been seeing a gastroenterologist who has been doing a liver panel every six months on me. And my liver is just fine. I take 10-16 grams a day--usually in 2 gram doses--and apparently that hasn't affected my liver at all.

I've been following the kratom issue pretty carefully, and mostly what I am is shocked at how Scott Gottlieb (head of FDA) puts out info that simply isn't true about kratom. I know he used to work for a big drug company and is still heavily invested. I think Holland is right--the drug companies simply don't want competition from kratom.